It sounds no different after a grand slam than it does a knockout in the fifth round. It is just as piercing following an eagle on 18 as it is a four-car pileup on Lap 250.

It is the roar from the crowd you hear when something at a sporting event causes adrenaline to swell like a tsunami. Most of the time, the crowd at least knows what it’s cheering.

When it comes to football, however, we tend to get confused. We group its participants with baseball and basketball players when they have far more in common with fighters and daredevils.

Junior Seau further proved this Thursday when it was reported that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease triggered by multiple concussions that’s linked to memory loss, dementia and depression. The former Chargers great wasn’t the first football player to endure such a sickness, and he certainly won’t be the last.

Like former Bears safety Dave Duerson 15 months earlier, Seau killed himself via a gunshot to the heart in May. He joined ex-Eagle Andre Waters and ex-Steeler Terry Long as former NFL players whose deaths may be connected to brain trauma.

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 players are suing the league for withholding information that concussions can lead to long-term brain injury.

Don’t be mistaken. This isn’t an argument calling for the extinction of football. It is the country’s most exciting and uniting spectator sport, and one that will endure regardless of what science reveals. No, this is a cry for everyone to recognize football for what it truly is — a game no less risky than helmetless boxing or freestyle motocross.

TIME recently reported a story in which it was revealed that when doctors examined the postmortem brains of 12 former football players — eight of whom were ex-NFL pros — every one of them had CTE. In other words, like guitar players with finger calluses or hockey players with dental bills, this disease will almost certainly accompany a career on the gridiron.

As a parent, is this something you can accept while your boy plays Pop Warner? As a fan, can you cheer guilt-free when your favorite linebacker lights up a wideout?

The common contention is that athletes “know the risk going in.” In reality, that argument is toothpick-thin.

Most football careers start in high school, and teenagers don’t care about the risks. And even if they do become more wary of them in time, how many are going to turn down a scholarship or an NFL contract if such an offer comes along?

Unlike boxing or big-air skateboarding, where the dangers are so clear that they attract only the most brazen, football’s perils often don invisibility cloaks. The sub-concussive hits on the line? The constant banging in practice each week? Players may not notice a thing when they go to bed that night, but they will assuredly notice when they can’t get out of bed 15 years later.

Then again, we knew this already. Football’s ties to brain damage have been reviewed, repeated and regurgitated for years. They have proven themselves as triggers to depression, despair and death — yet somehow, the national response has been delusion.